WWI Shooter?

[Cousin_IT]

Simple answer to the Western Front; World War One Online

More serious input: An FPS focusing entirely on the western front would be pretty boring (unless the devs take some serious poetic license). If there was a whole portfolio of different battles & campaigns from multiple POV, then it could be interesting enough to work. Could fight at Tanga as a German colonist; Tannenberg as a Russian conscript; Verdun as a German/Frenchman; Gallipoli as an ANZAC; First battle of Cambrai as the British (coz of the tank/infantry joint operation aspect); The Kaisers Battle as a German stormtrooper; Cantigny as an American (to placate the "we saved your asses twice" yankees ); & I guess the 2nd battle of Marne to act as the final "victory on the western front" sort of thing.

Suppose The Somme would have to be in there somewhere, since its the only battle anyone seems to be able to name without notes, though since it was the archetypal "get out & walk over there" trench warfare battle I doubt it would be that "fun"

So If made right there is enough materiel to make a game out of World War One (that sounds really tasteless). I havent even mentioned the campaigns in Italy & Austro-Hungary or the Middle East.

That said, it would probably only be an average game. If made by a small independant dev it wont have the production value needed; & if by a major dev like IW, it would probably have to be altered to appeal to an American audience (which would probably make it end up like that film Ghost Betallion, where the message is America pretty much wins the war while waving flags & eating apple pie)

 

[Uszi]

Simple answer to the Western Front; World War One Online

More serious input: An FPS focusing entirely on the western front would be pretty boring (unless the devs take some serious poetic license).

Hmm, I see a Discussion on the games Forum:

"God damn't! The fucking Germans mounted on Mutant Gorilla-Squids ARE OVER POWERED!"
"L2Plasma Rifle nub."

 

[TheSteamPunk]

Read "All Quiet on the Western Front" and tell me if that sounds fun.

Actually, reading the book gave me the real drive for making the game. The fierceness and sheer barbarity of the actual battles were incredibly anction-packed, with grenades flying, fighting back and forth, with a massive assault leading to a massive counterattack.

(The one part where there was an artillery bombardment in a cemetary, and they had to take cover in unearthed coffins might be interesting as a game, though)

That's the thing about actual battles in trench warfare: while the established lines were extremely rigid, the man-to-man battles themselves seem to have been a coin-toss, with fierce fighting but little headway.

And of course you wouldn't spend hours standing in a trench, just WAITING. That defeats the whole purpose of it being a GAME instead of a MOVIE.

In addition, the problem with WWI flight combat sims is that those are pretty much the ONLY WWI games already out there, and a naval sim couldn't work because there was only one major battleship engagement in the entire war.

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

Guys, It would be really boring. WW1 was just a bunch of hiding in trenches and waiting for the enemy to make some stupid mad dash towards you so that you can pick them off with you machine guns. There wasn't much urban warfare or FPS type warfare. WW1 was a trench war. It had sniping, artillery, and hiding.

True that. Read John Keegan's "The Face of Battle." He also did a history of WWI which I have not yet read. Then you could follow it up with some Seigfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.

WWI was pretty much the Big Dumb War. For instance, f you take what was basically a wetland, pour a bunch of rain on it, then bomb the hell out of it for 10 days to make sure the Germans are very, very clear on the fact that you are planning an attack (on bad intelligence, as it turned out), then march your guys out across what is now a man-made bog, and when they start literally drowning in mud, tell them to keep marching, and then when you lose 3 men for every 2 Germans killed, say the losses were justified for the gains you didn't make, if you do all that, then you have a Big Dumb Battle in a Big Dumb War. Which translates into Magical History Re-Write if you want an interesting game or Big Dumb Game if you don't.

 

[Stalington]

someone needs to take that game WW1 Medic and mod it so that you are a soldier or as an rts.

 

[courier]

I'm in agreement that this would make a terrible FPS, but I think there's real promise for a TBS/RTS or FP-RPG type of game.

For the former I imagine a game of setting up a proper trench line and holding it against assaults -- but also with a big does of intelligence and politics thrown in. For the latter, a fairly grim "moving up through the ranks while your buddies slowly die off around you" game -- military survival-horror in essence -- could work nicely.

(Imagine a military shooter in which actually attacking the enemy is a failure condition every damned time, but discreetly capping your Sergeant might just save a few lives...)

The one thing you have to take for granted in such a game is an inversion of the WW2FPS conventions, sort of like the early Russian campaigns in COD times a thousand. Instead of the "here's your orders from the all-knowing and benevolent Gamemaster Allied Command, your victory condition is to obey them," orders would be suicidal, pointless, or insane. The player would have to be motivated by a very different set of in-game goals and cues than the standard mission-description-on-general-staff-letterhead popular these days.

 

[Kogarian]

Add the Masterchief. No, seriously.

 

[george_berry]

Am I the only one sick of World War FPS'? I know there hasn't been many, if any WW1 games, but theres enough damn old war games as it is. It seems games are being made for every world, but the western world we live in. I wanna shoot up commies in a modern-day London or New York!

 

[Anarchemitis]

I got an idea! how about we don't make any FPSs' in the year 2009! Who likes my idea?
(We've made in the past 3 years enough FPS games to last a decade I say.]

 

[mwhite67]

Yeah I love the crappy guns of ww2 shooters. Could I please have even crappier guns that would be great. Maybe we could make a shooter where you just throw rocks at each other, a first person thrower.

 

[EnzoHonda]

I think the setting could make an interesting game, but not in the standard FPS mould. The game should start with the standard trench-warfare battle for the first level, but then branch off to an interesting Hitman-meets-Condemned-meets-Resident Evil kind of game where you're one guy with minimal weaponry running around in places you shouldn't be running around in. I don't know if this would work in a historical sense (my WWI knowledge is sorely lacking), but anything more than one or two levels of trench-warfare would get really old.

Anyway, now I'm going to go Google WWI so I can have some knowledge of the war that goes beyond Ferdinand and Vimy Ridge.

 

[thejoblot]

Trench warfare probably isn't as exciting as storming the beaches of Normandy. Battles wouldn't be much more than running for your life across no man's land. And who would want to play with those primitive weapons, anyway?

Multiplayer could be cool. Having 100+ other people charge the trenches might provide enough excitement for the ten seconds that you're alive.

 

[redstar alpha]

maybe if it was based in the last few months of the war since the majority of the rest of the war went like this *trench foot, trench foot, massacre, trench foot, trench foot*

also i think it is time we left both world wars in the past i find it impossible to enjoy really any shooter that does not have its head in a world of fantasy (even if it is based in the real world)

p.s. the trench foot was about the shear amont of sitting around doing nothing both sides did.

 

[Sly Ply]

In my mind there's plenty of scope for a WW1 FPS, it's just needs to be done differently from a shooter from a more modern time period. Rather than make a game which awards "spray and pray" combat and storming your enemies with machine guns blazing, shift the focus to a slower pace that awards marksmanship and strategy. Adding extra depth to the characters involved would also be a big help, especially if you wanted to add a survival horror depth to it. Modern FPS's seem to be concentrating too much on the run and gun style of play, with features like accurate aiming from the hip, bullet dodging jumping manoeuvres and health regeneration and this just reduces most games to simple reflex tests, sacrificing depth in the process. A WW1 game would have to take a much slower pace if it even hopes to be taken seriously.

Something similar to the Ghost Recon or Brothers in Arms series, where charging headlong at occupied positions blazing away with an Assault rifle would leave you dead, but if you took the time to either flank around the position or aim carefully you'd come out alive. These games sell enough copies and get a big enough player base to be regarded as successful, proving that this style of game does work. Also taking the squad based aspect of BiA would be an excellent way of giving a feeling of actually being there, as this helps add depth to the background of the men you fight alongside, making you actually care when a squad mate is vaporized by a stray mortar round.

The was more to the war on the Western front than just endless charging of machine guns too, if the game was going to encompass the viewpoint of the war for a British soldier for example, you would have the battles in Belgium such as Mons and the Retreat that followed, as well as the battle of the Marne, both of which were in 1914 before trench war really broke out giving fighting in open country, forests and villages. Once the trenches were dug, there were still smaller offensive operations, Night raids on the enemy lines, which could play out like the Chernobyl mission from CoD4, sneaking around and knifing sentries before stealing documents and escaping into the night. There were also smaller scale attacks conducted by the company that was holding a particular section of trench, these might consist of an hour-long bombardment from field guns and mortars before a charge at the enemy, occupying their trenches and defending them from counter attack but not going much further or even withdrawing under cover of darkness. Both of these would make for great FPS gameplay in my opinion. Of course you can't ignore the big battles but picking the event and the location carefully could really make the difference. Being part of the first wave of a conscript company in the first day of the Battle of the Somme would be murderous, however being in the first wave of one of the Battalions who ran rather than walking and made tremendous progress for fewer casualties would be far more satisfying for the player.

With regards to combat, a good melee system would work wonders in this kind of game, where an across the room bayonet charge wouldn't result in being sprayed with machine gun bullets. Something similar to Condemned would work brilliantly along with the ability to use environmental weapons as objects as well as your bayonet. With regards to the guns, while the choice is limited somewhat, there is still a wide variety of weapons. Off the top of my head I can think of various types of bolt action rifles, like the Mauser 98 and Lee-Enfield both scoped and unscoped, pistols like the Luger, C96 Broomhandle mauser and the Webley Revolver (chambering the powerful .455 round, making it the desert eagle of it's day in terms of power), Light machine guns such as the Lewis, the German MG08/15 as well as a large variety of makeshift weapons such as shotguns, be it sawn off, long barrelled or pump action, elephant rifles used by the Germans to stop British tanks and various close combat weapons used by trench raider teams. Finally there is the wide selection of grenades and other explosive devices from Mills bombs to jam tin grenades, and this is just what could be feasibly carried by the player. Besides, I tend to find myself sticking to the same few weapons across the course of the game so maybe a lack of variety isnt such a bad thing after all.

Also adding a horror aspect would be brilliant and fitting seeing as almost every veterans account of the conflict will include finding decomposing bodies, seeing men bleed to death from arterial wounds, gas attacks and all sorts of other horrific events.

I know thats a hell of a lot to read but I've given the idead of a WW1 FPS a lot of thought over the years!

 

[Sibbo]

i agree with the idea of awards for marksmanship but not stratergy also the idea of playing as different armies at different times. That may get rid of the idea that all enemies are inhernetly evil, something i hate about the medal of honour series. with regards to the idea of air warfare maybe something along the lines of battlefield with simplistic controls to be able to incorporate a level for flying, shooting down zeplins and such. Also at the end of the war the germans had started to develope a machine pistol. The idea of the famous battles for each faction i reckon is good but for anzacs not only have gallipoli but some of the battles they partcipated in on the western front or in the middle east. Not only that but why not have caverly for the first part of the game and then tanks for the later stages and be able to control both. maybe the realism could be bended to let you call in artillery strikes. Also maybe be attacked instead of being the side that charges ie. sit in the trench and pick off the incoming wave of men then melee in the trenchs. For multiplayer be able to choose a class system like dod or battlefield and allow vehicles in multiplayer maps. Personally the idea of trench warfare in multiplayer i reckon sounds brilliant. I think idea could work if done delicately and i'd buy it.

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

Trench warfare probably isn't as exciting as storming the beaches of Normandy. Battles wouldn't be much more than running for your life across no man's land. And who would want to play with those primitive weapons, anyway?

Multiplayer could be cool. Having 100+ other people charge the trenches might provide enough excitement for the ten seconds that you're alive.

WWI trench warfare went mostly like this:

1.) Sit in your trench for days, weeks, months.
2.) Receive orders from generals waaaaay in the back, who have no reliable means of receiving anything like a current report on the situation at the front, telling you to "go over the top" at x date/time.
3.) At x date/time, when your commanding officer blows the whistle, you get up out of the trench and start marching in a straight line. (no ducking, dodging, or run-and-gun allowed, in large part. They were still using a 19th century approach to infantry even though the weaponry had changed radically since then.)
4.) Continue marching in a straight line, to the best of your ability, while climbing over barbed wire, scrambling through foxholes, and, very likely, being shelled by your own artillery who had no reliable means of determining exactly where you were.
5.) Die. A lot.
6.)When If you get to the German trenches, shoot, bayonet, throw grenades, etc. If you are successful, you get to keep the German trench as your own. Lucky you.
7.)Repeat, starting from 1.)

So yeah, pretty much what he said.

I suppose you could put some bonus material in the game where, if you play all the way through and then sit through the credits, you can unlock a bonus round where you are sent to a military hospital to be treated for shell-shock with anything from psychoanalysis to electric shock, depending on your doctor. There's also an unlockable vehicle section where you try to get from your room to the dining room in a wheelchair made out of wicker, wood, and iron, because your legs were blown off.

Now, if you wanted to have an actually exciting WWI game, you'd be in the ambulance corp. Free-roaming battlefield game with the objective of getting as many soldiers out of the battlefield back to the field hospital in a still living state. All of this without getting your own ass shot off. It would be vehicle heavy of course, but could have stealth, ranged and melee combat, etc. You'd have to balance combat with the decreasing health meter of your intended rescuee. Rescue is the objective, not kills.

 

[Cousin_IT]

the gist of all FPS (& indeed war itself) is either push forward to take an objective, or shoot baddies till they stop respawning. In that respect a WW1 Western Fron trench war FPS would be FPS at its rawest tbh. There was alot more to WW1 than just the trenches in France tommies sat at the front while donkey generals sipped wine from afar (just as there was more to WW2 then Normandy & Stalingrad, not that ne1 seems to remember).

If nothing else, a WW1 shooter could have the potential to present a serious topic seriously as a game. If Medal of Honour: Airbourne showed anthing (other than mediocrity), its how trivial the gaming industry treats WW2; mixing a portrayl of real events in WW2 with machinegun wielding Nazi boss soldiers & a doomfortress: all swimming in a sea of pretentious patriotism & shallowness.

 

[Mirika_the_warrior]

It would certainly be a break from the norm of shooters, but people generally play shooters for the action, not the suicidal charges to the enemy's trenches at the hands of commanders not yet adapted to twentieth century warfare, but of course that would be the only action in the game if it was perfectly historical and not some freakish alternate history time line thing. Basically you would be doomed to be cut down by machine gun fire, artillery, or a gas attack, or you can just sit in a trench getting trench foot hoping your enemies die of infection before you do.

 

[TheSteamPunk]

It would certainly be a break from the norm of shooters, but people generally play shooters for the action, not the suicidal charges to the enemy's trenches at the hands of commanders not yet adapted to twentieth century warfare, but of course that would be the only action in the game if it was perfectly historical and not some freakish alternate history time line thing. Basically you would be doomed to be cut down by machine gun fire, artillery, or a gas attack, or you can just sit in a trench getting trench foot hoping your enemies die of infection before you do.

For a game to work, Trench foot wouldn't even be included in the game to affect the player. As stated, some elements of horror could be incoporated, as you see several comrades fall to a machine gun before someone's grenade destroys the gunner.

A slow, tactical approach would be best with deliberate attacks. Elephant guns, flamethrowers, and carriable heavy macine guns would be nice.

Like I've said, trench combat is actually alot like close-quarters combat, except incredibly more intense. A general one man stategy would be to dash for the enemy, fire of a round to make him duck, then stab him with the bayonet. I've actually managed to describe a friend of mine's fighting technique as trench warfare, because of his liberal use of grenades and melees.

...mixing a portrayl of real events in WW2 with machinegun wielding Nazi boss soldiers & a doomfortress...

The "Doomfortress" is called a flak tower, and it actually existed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flak_tower
However, I agree that minigun wielding Nazi supertroopers is taking it a bit too far.